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In the areas of greatest concern, things have grown a lot worse for those in the bottom half of the income scale in a still-uneven, job-challenged economy across most of the nation.
The Gallup Poll reports this week that only 23 percent of all Americans they survey each month "were satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S."
That number has precipitously fallen to "the lower end of what Gallup has measured since 1979", the polling firm said. That was when America was scraping bottom under Jimmy Carter, surely one of our worst presidents, at least until Barack Obama came along to redefine what "worst" really feels like.
In December 2008, polling by CNN-Opinion Research Corporation found that more than 75 percent of the people they surveyed said Obama "can manage the government effectively." Flash forward to earlier this year when only 43 percent would say that.
For the past six years, the No. 1 issue in the country has been the economy and jobs and that's unlikely to change in his final two years. Even though Obama's Commerce Department reported this week that the economy grew by 5 percent in the third quarter, up from the government's earlier estimate of 3.9 percent.
That's an unexpected revision in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the broadest measurement of the economic health of the country that took many economists by surprise.
Particularly at the Federal Reserve which is predicting the economy will grow by little more than a tepid 2-to-3 percent which may be closer to the truth once the fourth quarter numbers are in.
The government throws many numbers into the GDP basket. Things like federal, state and local government spending, exports, and various investment expenditures.
The sharply higher GDP number was largely due to faster consumption (3.2 percent vs. 2.2) -- despite flat or falling incomes.
That's why Paul Dales of Capital Economics warns that even though the GDP number looks rosy, it suggests that households have had to dip into their savings to boost spending. And that can last only so long.
But other numbers tell a bleaker story about the Obama economy. For example, existing home sales plunged last month to their lowest level in half a year, a worrying sign of economic weakness. Housing sales are a major chunk of the economy and it appears that a lot of Americans are not in a financial position to enter the market.
Read the rest:
Obama's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year - Donald Lambro - Page 2
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